1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to the dry cleaning of clothes, rugs, and other fabrics and, more particularly, to the use of water-injecting detergents for halogenated dry cleaning solvents.
2. Brief Description of Related Technology
Historically, perchloroethylene, hydrocarbons, and silicon-based solvents, for example, have been used to dry clean fabrics. All of these dry cleaning solvents have disadvantages that render their use unfavorable. Perchloroethylene is a carcinogen, hydrocarbons are flammable, and silicon-based solvents do not clean as well as the other solvents.
Like other lipophilic dry cleaning solvents, provision must be made to remove the hydrophilic stains as well as the lipophilic stains on fabric. In addition to spot cleaning fabrics before they are dry-cleaned, water-injecting detergent formulations can be used to remove the hydrophilic stains. The detergent formulations can also contain cationic surfactants that enhance fabric softening and reduce static cling. The water-injecting detergent can be metered in automatically as a separate package into the dry cleaning machine.